A Comprehensive Overview on 5G-And-Beyond Networks with Uavs
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1 A Comprehensive Overview on 5G-and-Beyond Networks with UAVs: From Communications to Sensing and Intelligence Qingqing Wu, Jie Xu, Yong Zeng, Derrick Wing Kwan Ng, Naofal Al-Dhahir, Robert Schober, and A. Lee Swindlehurst Abstract—Due to the advancements in cellular technologies intelligence is also essential for 5G-and-beyond 3D heterogeneous and the dense deployment of cellular infrastructure, integrating wireless networks with coexisting aerial and ground users. In unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the fifth-generation (5G) this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of the latest and beyond cellular networks is a promising solution to achieve research efforts on integrating UAVs into cellular networks, safe UAV operation as well as enabling diversified applications with an emphasis on how to exploit advanced techniques (e.g., with mission-specific payload data delivery. In particular, 5G intelligent reflecting surface, short packet transmission, energy networks need to support three typical usage scenarios, namely, harvesting, joint communication and radar sensing, and edge enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low-latency intelligence) to meet the diversified service requirements of next- communications (URLLC), and massive machine-type communi- generation wireless systems. Moreover, we highlight important cations (mMTC). On the one hand, UAVs can be leveraged as directions for further investigation in future work. cost-effective aerial platforms to provide ground users with en- hanced communication services by exploiting their high cruising Index Terms—Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), 5G-and-beyond altitude and controllable maneuverability in three-dimensional 3D cellular networks, aerial-terrestrial integration, communica- (3D) space. On the other hand, providing such communication tion, sensing, network intelligence. services simultaneously for both UAV and ground users poses new challenges due to the need for ubiquitous 3D signal coverage as I. INTRODUCTION well as the strong air-ground network interference. Besides the requirement of high-performance wireless communications, the The global market for commercial unmanned aerial vehicles ability to support effective and efficient sensing as well as network (UAVs), also known as drones, has grown significantly over the last decade and is projected to skyrocket to 45:8 billion Q. Wu is with the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart dollars in 2025 from 19:3 billion dollars in 2020 [2]. The City and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of major driving factors behind such a dramatic market size Macau, Macau, China 999078 (email: [email protected]). J. Xu is with the Future Network of Intelligence Institute (FNii) and the growth are the steadily decreasing manufacturing costs and School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong the increasing number of applications in a broad range of (Shenzhen), Shenzhen 518172, China (e-mail: [email protected]). civilian and commercial sectors, including surveillance and Y. Zeng is with the National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, and also with the Purple Mountain monitoring, aerial imaging, precision agriculture, smart lo- Laboratories, Nanjing 211111, China (e-mail: yong [email protected]). gistics, law enforcement, disaster response, and prehospital D. W. K. Ng is with the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommu- emergency care. Particularly, as announced by the Federal nications, the University of New South Wales, NSW 2052, Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). Aviation Administration (FAA) during its press conference N. Al-Dhahir is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi- on the “Drone Integration Pilot Program” in Washington on neering, the University of Texas at Dallas, TX 75083-0688, USA (e-mail: November 8, 2017 [3]: “The need for us to integrate unmanned [email protected]). R. Schober is with the Institute for Digital Communications, Friedrich- aircraft into the National Airspace System (NAS) continues to arXiv:2010.09317v2 [cs.IT] 12 Jun 2021 Alexander-University Erlangen-Nurnberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany (e-mail: be a national priority. After the hurricanes, drones became [email protected]). a literal lifeline. They gave us an operational window that A. L. Swindlehurst is with the Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA (e-mail: was a game changer at every level.” This national program [email protected]). was launched to further explore the expanded use of drones, The work of Q. Wu was supported in part by the Macau Science including beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flights, night- and Technology Development Fund, Macau SAR, under SKL-IOTSC-2021- 2023, 0119/2020/A3, 0108/2020/A, and the Guangdong NSF under Grant time operation, and flights over people. Later, during the Notre 2021A1515011900. The work of J. Xu was supported by the National Natural Dame Cathedral fire in 2019 [4], two UAVs equipped with Science Foundation of China under grants 61871137 and U2001208, and high-resolution thermal imaging cameras were dispatched in the Science and Technology Program of Guangdong Province under grant 2021A0505030002. The work of Y. Zeng was supported by the Natural BVLOS environments to help firefighters gauge the scene Science Foundation of China under Grant 62071114, by the Fundamental through the billowing smoke and effectively position firehoses Research Funds for the Central Universities of China under grant number to combat the blaze in real-time. Very recently, UAVs have 3204002004A2, and also by the “Program for Innovative Talents and En- trepreneur in Jiangsu” under grant number 1104000402. The work of D. also been applied worldwide to combat the spread of COVID- W. K. Ng was supported by funding from the UNSW Digital Grid Futures 19, e.g., to facilitate communication/broadcast information, Institute, UNSW, Sydney, under a cross-disciplinary fund scheme and by the disinfect outbreak-affected areas, deliver critical supplies, and Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project (DP210102169). The work of A. L. Swindlehurst was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation measure body temperatures [5]. In December 28, 2020, the grant ECCS-2030029. FAA further released two long-awaited drone rules. One is 2 Year 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 Radio Frequency (uplink only) Manual controlled drone via RF (non-Wi-Fi) Wi-Fi (up- & downlink) Drone control incl. video downlink (local Wi-Fi network) 4G/LTE Mbit/s 10.000 Same as Wi-Fi-operated but via 10.000 cellular network 4G/LTE 8.000 5G Same as 4G but via cellular network 5G 6.000 4.000 Up to 100 times higher bitrate at five times lower latency, compared to regular 4G/LTE 2.000 1.300 1.000 600 100 0 Max. Download Speed per Technology Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 4G/LTE 4G/LTE 5G 2.4GHz 5.2GHz Advanced Fig. 1. The evolution of drone connectivity and the role of 5G [1]. on remote identification for UAVs and the other is on UAV hand, to guarantee safe and efficient flight operations of mul- operations at night and over people. These new rules are tiple UAVs, it is of paramount importance to provide secure expected to address the safety, security and privacy concerns and ultra-reliable communication links between the UAVs and while advancing opportunities for innovation and utilization of their ground pilots or control stations for conveying command UAV technology. and control signals, especially in BVLOS scenarios. Moreover, In practice, depending on the size, weight, wing configura- some practical UAV applications (e.g., real-time drone video tion, flying duration, etc., UAVs can be classified into different filming and streaming to ground entities) require very high categories, such as large UAV versus small/mini UAVs, fixed- data rates in the air-to-ground payload communication links. wing versus rotary-wing UAVs, etc. [6]. Each type of UAVs Fortunately, these requirements can in principle be largely generally possesses a set of unique characteristics and thus met by cellular networks, thanks to their densely deployed may be suitable for different application scenarios. For ex- communication infrastructure as well as advanced 5G-and- ample, fixed-wing UAVs have higher maximum flying speed, beyond technologies. On the other hand, because of advances greater payloads, and longer flying endurance than rotary-wing in communication equipment miniaturization as well as UAV UAVs, whereas the former requires a runway or launcher for manufacturing, mounting compact and lightweight base sta- takeoff/landing and it is also difficult for them to hover at tions (BSs) or relays on UAVs becomes increasingly feasible. a fixed position. In contrast, rotary-wing UAVs not only can This leads to new types of flying aerial platforms that can be take off/land vertically but also remain static at desired hover- exploited to improve the quality of services for terrestrial users ing locations, which renders them appealing for applications as well as to satisfy the need for on-demand deployment to such as monitoring. A detailed overview on different UAV address, e.g., temporary or unexpected events. This has led to classifications and applications was provided in [7]. two promising research paradigms for UAV communications, namely, UAV-assisted cellular communications and cellular- Wireless communication is an essential technology to un- connected UAVs [8], where UAVs are integrated into cellular lock the full potential of UAVs